"I've seen many documentaries about Russia and some of the violence towards the LGBT community and it's sickening and it's sad," she said.

"It's Putin's country and he can do what he likes with the country, but what I'm worried about is the safety of the LGBT community.

"Obviously, there's a lot of violence, torturing - torturing to death almost - and I'm hoping to see change after these games."

The Sochi Olympics has put Russia's law banning the promotion of "non-traditional" sexuality to minors under the spotlight, with activists saying it is at odds with principle six of the Olympic Charter, which opposes all forms of discrimination.

The US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) says the law has been used to prosecute protesters, including one who simply stood holding a sign that read: "Being gay and loving gays is normal; beating gays and killing gays is criminal."

Brockhoff has joined the "Principle 6" campaign against the law. The Australian bobsleigh team, meanwhile, will display the Principal 6 campaign logo on their sled and team captain Heath Spence is an ambassador for the movement.

A report just released by HRW says there appears to have been a rise in hate crimes since the law was implemented last year.

"The absence of relevant data makes it impossible to quantify the extent to which such violence and harassment increased during 2013, but all of the victims and LGBT groups who spoke to HRW said they experienced an escalation in homophobic attacks starting in late 2012," she said.

The report cites a survey by the Russian LGBT Network, an umbrella LGBT group based in St Petersburg, which found that: "More than 50 per cent of the 2,007 respondents had experienced psychological abuse, and 15 per cent had experienced physical violence.